Why did the Creator create everything so strangely? He built a palace, invited all His beloved guests, and then placed guards and policemen around the palace who are testing and checking the guests, not letting them pass and causing them pain and suffering. Didn’t the Creator know in advance who would be loyal to Him, who loves Him and who doesn’t? Why does the Creator reject us all? Is it so that only those who can overcome all the obstacles will pass, in order to prove their loyalty and readiness?

The point is that it is in this struggle that our desire is formed; a vessel for receiving the filling in the King’s palace is built and stabilized. Otherwise, how would we be able to build this vessel? After all, it wasn’t given to us readymade from Above. If we were not allowed to pass without a reason, would that be justified? It is as if I yearn for the Creator with all my heart, and here some guard throws me down the mountain.

The point is that I am totally opposite to the attributes required to reach the top of the mountain. I am not the person I should be to become a guest at the King’s palace. It is only thanks to the guards that I constantly change by becoming more and more adapted.

These forces, of course, are depicted in my ego as vicious, cruel guards who don’t let me pass. The Creator is the cruelest of them all because He is the one who posted all these guards and policemen. He created my evil inclination and all the problems and suffering that relate to it. It is as if he gave birth to a poor, sick child and instead of feeling sorry for him, He even beats him, as if the child is guilty of something.

Apparently, all our complaints are justified, but the point is that the only way to build the right vessel is with the help of the right attributes that we receive, which we don’t have from the start. So the right approach is to divide myself into two. From one perspective you see what there is in your egoistic desire. From a second perspective, you see what there is in your desire to bestow, in your yearning to resemble the Creator, which means according to the ascent up the mountain, on top of which there is the King’s palace.

Following these two perspectives is called the “middle line.” With regard to your desire to receive this is the most terrible way in which there is no justice but actually only the opposite! You will not be able to justify the desire to bestow or to support it so much. This is because we should exert ourselves on both sides, both from the side of the ego and from the side of the yearning for bestowal.

What’s important is that you are looking at these two points independently from a neutral zone. It is as if you rose to Keter and from there you are watching this machine, like the Creator. It doesn’t belong to you, but it is yours only if it helps you resemble Him. Thanks to it, you can become like Him, reach adhesion with Him, and look at everything else as a means to attain that.

Thus you can justify, understand, and go through all these trials “above reason”: both as the egoist and as the one that bestows. This is because this bestowal is also totally based on receiving.

You want to adhere to the Creator instead of being connected to your desire to receive. The desire to receive is merely a tool for you to attain the Creator. With the help of the Torah, (the Reforming Light), you have to turn this evil inclination into the good inclination with which you will adhere to the Creator.

In order to adhere to the Creator, you need the good inclination, but in order for this good inclination to be able to help you adhere to it, you should approach it from the side of the evil inclination by using the Torah. All of creation was created in order to reach adhesion with the Creator. From this point of adhesion, which we want to attain, we have to look at the whole process we are going through. Then you will cut yourself off the egoistic perspective and not look at yourself through your desire to receive, through your ego. You will constantly be above it and look at it from the side, as at a means for achieving a goal.

This is why it is so important to constantly raise the greatness of the goal, the Creator, the group, and the friends. Because this will help you relate to everything else as to tools.
[78011]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Can a physical desire, for example, sexual desire stand in my way on the spiritual path?

Answer: Physical desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge cannot stand in a person’s spiritual advancement. We shouldn’t deal with what belongs to the body separately.

We should only be worried about the hatred we feel towards the friends and then toward the whole world.

If you want to eat five servings instead of one, it is harmful for the body, but it doesn’t interfere with the spiritual path. The same goes for sex.

So think only about the connection with the Creator through the friends, and you can stop worrying about all the rest.
[77366]
From the Brazil Convention 5/06/12, Lesson 5

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Question: It isn’t clear how a modern person who doesn’t want to have children will suddenly have this desire.

Answer: It is thanks to the fact that we begin to connect mutually all over the world. By forming connections based on love above the repulsion and the unpleasantness, we begin to understand the internal power that is concealed in these relations. We will see to what extent bestowal upon others fills us.

Then a woman would want to be in such a relationship with her husband, with a certain husband and not some random partner, as we see these days. Then they will be able to establish a mutual relationship and to build a family, not on the biological, sexual level, but on the level of the spiritual connection. In such a family they will feel that it is possible to expand the relationship, fulfilling it through children. This is all the result of a person’s learning to connect with the world.

We’ve always lived egoistically. We gave and received egoistically, but now the whole world will reach an altruistic connection. First it is in the form of to bestowing in order to bestow, and then it is in the form of to receiving in order to bestow. We will understand that it is worthwhile to reach such a form of receiving in order to increase our bestowal.

It may seem like lofty language, but according to the pace of our development this future is very near. Of course, it is very hard to understand this, as long as a person doesn’t change. But by changing gradually, we begin to understand the level we are on and a bit above it.

I think that the more a person corrects himself, by becoming more integral and connected to others, by treating others with love, bestowal, concern, mutual understanding, and mutual guarantee, his attitude towards the other sex, towards his or her partner, will also change and so will the attitude to family ties and to children.

After all, we’ve never felt what love is. We acted according to our natural instincts and accordingly we chose the right spouse. But now our close relationships will be based on an internal feeling after we’ve learned to live above our ego.

Nature obliges us to establish such global relationships around the world. Then we will not look at the other sex on the beastly, physical level where the family has already collapsed. We will create a family alliance on a higher spiritual level, and will establish connections of mutual bestowal.

By this mutual bestowal I will begin to feel differently about my spouse and he or she will feel the same way about me, so there will be a new connection between us, as it says: “a man and a woman, if they were granted, Divinity is between them,” which means a special connection. Thanks to this connection, we will begin to think about children. This will be a totally different family, we are not going back to what was in the past, but rather will raise our connection from the corporeal, physical level to the level of the souls, to the spiritual level.

The family will have the same form: a man, a woman, children, but the meaning and the goal will be totally different.

[77087]
From a “Talk About a New Life” #19, 2/02/12

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If I could peep out of my small envelope and see where I am in this global world, how I treat all of humanity, which as one soul goes through different changes, by approaching its perfect state, I would perceive my life a little differently. I wouldn’t look at my personal life, at a life that is as small as an ant’s life, that shouldn’t be taken into account at all.

If you are included in the great global process together with others, you will feel that you are in the infinite flow of life. In the meantime we should learn what to do in order to feel the eternity of nature and to be included in it. Then from this height you will be able to solve all your personal problems.

But if we try to fix them on the ordinary corporeal level, we will not be able to solve anything. The evidence for that are all the futile attempts to correct the current situation taken by governments. There is no other means to correct our personal state, except for integral education and upbringing.

Therefore, a woman who feels miserable today since she couldn’t find a partner with whom to build a family and have children should understand that this is how nature wants to compel her to be included in the whole world as a woman.

As a result of being included in the world, which is the result of the integral education, she begins to understand the connections she should have with others. She begins to feel how good this connection in mutuality with the whole world is.

Then she will meet the right man and they will begin to learn how they can support one another mutually, in order to rise to the spiritual level and to become one, although they can still be different and stay each in their own ego.

The moment the personal perception changes, everything will immediately work out. They will want to be more strongly connected and to have children, so that the mutual connection can be implemented spiritually. This spirit will oblige them to build a family.
[77084]
From a “Talk About a New Life” #19, 2/02/12

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No matter what obstacles we encounter along the way, despair, helplessness, different opinions, thoughts and bad egoistic feelings, hate, unpleasantness, indifference, all this gradually accumulates and creates one huge desire that is called the feeling of the “exile in Egypt.” Only by discovering its full size, will we be able to imagine the redemption from its dark depths.

Thus the thought about redemption is added to the feeling of exile and leads us to freedom. The darkness that we feel standing in front of Pharaoh and the escape from this darkness, are all important clarifications within the Light that is revealed to a person who works in order to come out of exile.

The Light makes him feel an increasingly greater darkness and fear of the place he is in, of his own attributes. The main thing here is not to torture ourselves and not to let go, but to understand that we have to go through the full detailed feeling of exile. After all, this is the revelation of the nature of creation, about which it is written: “I have created the evil inclination.” Now our job is only to ask for the Reforming Light.

When this whole situation is clearly clarified in a person’s perception, he understands that the changes do not occur on the physical level, but on the level of the attributes that reveal the relationship between them. There is a general system and all its parts are interconnected in total interdependence. This is how all of creation was created.

But since this connection comes from Above, only the faintest Light is revealed in it, the Light of Nefesh, and then the power of repulsion and hate, the ego, is revealed among all the separated parts and gradually grows. This is already the real creation that was created outside the perfect previous state. The created being was shattered and now we have to work in order to connect him.

Nothing changes in the corporeal world. We have to imagine a picture in which the internal attributes of things change, the relationships, which are totally detached from the corporeal forms of time, motion, and space. This is very helpful.

You should understand that a person has no connection to the Light he is in if he doesn’t yearn to connect with others. Only if he makes an effort to connect with others above the natural feeling of repulsion, does he evoke and draw upon himself the Light that surrounds him.

On the other hand, we may say that a person connects with the Creator only through the general system. To the extent that a person can connect with it, he has contact with the upper Light.

There is no other means to come close to the Creator, to the Light, but through the general system. If a person is partially connected to the system of the souls, then his connection with the Light will not be whole either. The order of the spiritual levels is determined by that. If I connect to others by 20%, then I connect to the Creator by 20% and rise to the height of 20% on the spiritual levels. Everything is measured in relation to the desires. So our work is to intensify the connections among all of humanity, in all of reality, and then we will be able to contact the Creator.
[76824]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A person judges himself according to how he feels.

If I accept the conditions: “There is none else besides Him,” the Creator is absolutely good, He is the good and the benevolent, He totally fills everything, and I am in the Upper Light, then I feel Him according to my equivalence to Him, according to the law of the equivalence of form. And if I am opposite to Him, I feel like I am bad or I feel the Upper Light is bad; there is no difference. Whoever blames someone else, is actually blaming himself and his own attributes.

But if I have accepted the fact that “There is none else besides Him,” the Creator is absolutely good, He fills everything, and I feel good, then I actually am in this goodness, I really feel it.

How? In the connection with my friends. But what detector, what sense do I use?

We must clearly understand where we feel the appearance of the Creator, the revelation of His Providence, His attitude towards us!

If I feel it in me, it is an egoistic feeling, I simply feel good today, I am in a good mood, I slept well, I woke up and everything is fine.

We should understand how we feel this in the sense called the “soul.” A “soul” is adhesion, the connection of our points in the heart, our mutual yearnings in the group, in our attitude towards the world, to humanity, to everything.
[76214]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Lesson 5

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The ones who are given the chance to slip are those who have attained the specific degree and must reveal their evil inclination that can be corrected. But when we are shown a bit of our ego, we immediately want to run away and hide. Your heart is being hardened, your energy and inspiration are taken away, and you accept it. You are no longer in the right kind of spirit; you walk around all beat with a sour expression on your face.

I understand that people experience different states. But the group is able to create an atmosphere, where a person can easily overcome these descents within a blink of an eye—overcome them on the spot and begin to value bestowal over his attitude.

You must be grateful for having your spirit taken away from you, and that your ego is no longer participating in your spiritual action. Indeed, in this case your actions most definitely will be for the purpose of bestowing.

I do not want to do anything, I am not in the right mood, and I don’t feel the importance, but with my mind, I understand that if I were to do this, it would be an action of bestowal. I do not have any energy or desire to do this, but I can ask for it. And when I am not even able to ask for it, I can come to a group that will awaken me and give me a little inspiration.

But I do not ask for fuel, for the right spirit! After all, if I were in the right kind of spirit, my ego would immediately want to do these actions. The thief will run in front of everyone shouting: “Catch the thief.” This is why I want to keep my bad mood! Of course, I do not try to remain in despair, but I do not ask to have it corrected. I want for my egoism to stay distant from what I am doing now.

And then, whenever I do something—it will be an action of bestowal. After all, this bestowal did not happen out of my desire to enjoy, but only because I received strength from Above: the sense of importance and the ability. The Creator did all this through me: He robed in me and carried this action out. This is pure benefit called similarity to Him and adhesion.

And let the feeling remain as bad as it was. I do not ask to have it corrected. This will protect me from adding my egoism to a spiritual action. For this reason, as you continue going forward, the animal inside you will keep feeling worse, but at the same time, the man in you will keep feeling better because you are able to do actions of bestowal over all these unpleasant feelings. So you divide in two parts.
[76523]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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When we look at this world, we don’t understand the connection between us and the spiritual world. In other words, we don’t understand the connection between the situation we are in now and the real state in which we are in connection and adhesion with the upper force. It all depends on the right definitions, which means our correct interpretation of what we are feeling in our hearts and what we understand in our minds, and in understanding the reality we are in.

If we imagine our reality correctly and constantly try to develop it and to stabilize it as much as we can, to build it and to carefully correct as much as we understand, our work will be more persistent and we will gradually advance in one direction.

This work includes many elements, which eventually make up one state. At the moment they seem to be unrelated to each other, very distant from one another. How can we see the connection between the perception of reality and the love of others? How can we connect our study of the wisdom of Kabbalah with the group? How can we tie the correction of this world with our ascent up the spiritual ladder?

These things seem very different. A person assumes that if they are connected in some way, then it is an indirect connection. So all our work is to stabilize the right picture inside us.

First we have to discover that the current perception of reality is wrong and to see that it is flawed, contrary to, and the opposite of the actual reality and to constantly try to correct and to improve it. This is how a person can see that the two descriptions can coexist in him: the real image of reality and the feeling of this world.

Of course it involves a duality and double vision, but gradually a person gets used to it. This evokes him to change and to improve himself so that the two images will connect and intersect as in a gun sight, and will make up one picture.

This is how we have to work. It isn’t simple because we cannot imagine the spiritual world that is totally made of forces. We are not physical bodies either, but a force or an attribute, or a desire and a mind, qualities and essences.

But we have to at least imagine it within a force field, waves, and directions of a force that are aimed from one end to another. This description, however, is also incorrect, because the spiritual world is made only from qualities and not from physical forces that we imagine. But this will at least be an advanced perception.
[76413]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What exactly is our work in unity?

Answer: I have to yearn for a connection with the text that we study, to want that everything it says to be fulfilled in my connection with the general vessel, with the whole desire. I want to discover all the phenomena The Zohar talks about in my connection with the group.

The Zohar talks about the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the desire, nothing more. So there, it speaks about the sages, land, trees, animals, and donkeys—everything applies to the four phases of desire. We shouldn’t be distracted from this internal meaning and imagine an external picture.

Even if it “diverts” us, we have to hold on to the internality as hard as we can, and we always keep this struggle inside us with mixed success. The main thing is to try, which means that you are performing corrections and raising the internality over the externality, raising it higher and higher.

These are the greatest corrections, which only we can perform as the lowest level of the system. Until now no one could do that, not even the great Kabbalists of the past. We, in our generation, perform this most important work by raising the internality over the externality at the base of the system.
[76319]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, The Zohar

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The need for each of the friends is a very unpleasant necessity. We always divide people: These are more agreeable, these are less; we can better understand these, those ones less; these ones can be ignored; we can become closer with these, but should stay away from those, etc. We constantly differentiate the surrounding society, and this is very bad.

The concept “There is none else besides Him” means that you treat everyone equally. It’s very hard! Here we must constantly monitor our egoism, which always puts everyone in his place: This one is closer, that one is farther, I walk past this one, have to smile to that one, to greet this one, to hold that one’s hand, etc. Thus, we always position ourselves relative to others because these are animal feelings.

But all the points in the heart are exactly the same. That is why equal treatment and absolute leveling of our natural, earthly properties in order to remove them and not to see them at all are the main thing.

In spiritual work, there are no pleasant or unpleasant, near or far; there is none whom you understand or don’t understand. I mean it as spiritual work, not dissemination actions or daily work on the physical level. In the group, one cannot be less or more: Everyone is equal; otherwise, they are not friends.

Thus, removing all the animal earthly signs and placing all the points in the heart on the same level, constantly working so they are equal, equivalent for me, higher or lower than me, but equally important, I build myself so as not to see the friends’ bodies. This is very important and extremely difficult because egoism constantly automatically focuses on someone and ignores the other, etc.

There are dozens of people whom we don’t notice. And there are people who attract us. This must be cleaned, deleted. Everyone is equal. The soul is one, and there are no differences in the spiritual realm, the upper Light levels everything.

That is why the group is such a training place, such a laboratory aimed at the goal that is necessary for aligning oneself according to the goal in all respects. One person cannot achieve this. He needs the sights, through which he will look and align the axes to hit the target accurately.

This is one of the most important axes. A person removes everything earthly and sees only the point burning in his friend and aimed at the goal. He appreciates him only for this, only in this is he his friend, he wants to be his equal only in this, he wants to unite only with this. All the rest, the earthly, will die anyway, will be corrected in some way, it doesn’t matter; the most important is the point.

After all, the mother loves her child regardless of his character, properties, etc.; he is like that by nature, what can you do? She loves him because he has her point. Of course, this is egoistic animal love. And initially, it must be as the egoistic animal in us because we all come from one soul.

And then we’ll see how everyone “gives birth” to each other in the spiritual world. If we are equal, then each of us is greater and smaller than the other. Our AHPs are combined with the Galgalta ve Eynaim of the friends, and their AHPs are included in me and give birth to me. Working in this way, the whole system becomes integral. I become included in someone; he becomes included into me, and thus everyone in everyone else: all the billions of particles.

Therefore, we must understand that thus we are fathers/mothers and their children for everyone. The mutual inclusion of Galgalta ve Eynaim in AHP in a sphere creates this integral drop.

There are a lot of settings. There are, in general, a few of them, but we interpret them in this way because it’s very difficult to withstand the truth; we have to divide it into components, the sum of which will give us the exact sight to the target, to unity. In our properties, this unity is composed in all kinds of paths towards it. Altogether, they help us act: by suffering from behind, by striving forward, with enthusiasm for the goal, by seeing oneself higher or lower than others, etc.
[76022]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Lesson 5

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